Burtons Grill & Bar — Restaurant in Nashua

Came here last night (on a Monday night) with a group of 13 people for a friend's birthday party. We had reservations ahead of time and they sat us at a large booth split into two tables with a gap in the middle (not ideal for a group party, as it made the group feel separated from each other). I was surprised they didn't have a private room or the ability to offer us a more "party-type" table.

We were greeted with friendliness and then proceeded to order our drinks from our server (whose I can't remember his name for the life of me: tall with beard, that's all I know).

We had to specifically request bread for the table (both regular and gluten-free), which was a little annoying since they should be offered automatically. They also didn't give us enough bread for everyone in the party. The gluten-free focaccia bread had a nice flavor, with a somewhat sponge-like texture. Herb butter = DELICIOUS.

When it came time to order, I was able to choose from a large gluten-sensitive menu, which was almost as big as the regular one, which was very nice!

I ordered the Salmon Romesco: Gulf of Maine bronzed salmon (crisped to perfection and absolutely delicious, good portion), "Romesco sauce" (some sauce that the rice sat on that looked similar to buffalo sauce but tasted like a tomato-based sauce... interesting color but complemented the rice/salmon well), herbed jasmine rice (pretty standard, but still delicious), green beans (kind of wimpy, wilted, would have liked them fresher and more flavorful to be honest), citrus fennel slaw (consisted of a tiny 1/2 dollar size swirl of a lemony-fennel cabbage slaw...tasty but also kinda wimpy in size too).

Now, for the downside....

Our server made so many mistakes it wasn't even funny:

I waited 30 minutes until my empty water glass finally got filled He made our friend's drink wrong, he wanted grape juice in his cocktail and instead got grapefruit juice Our food came out sporadically instead of all at once, my meal being one of the first, so I had to just stare at my delicious hot food while the rest of the salads (that should have been brought out first), came out 3-5 minutes after. He messed up the order for the birthday guy and his wife and they had to wait while the rest of us ate our food (put cheese on the burger when there wasn't supposed to be and also forgot the caramelized onions she requested). When it came time to split the bill he put the wrong items on wrong receipts so we had a huge mess of bills and had to end up Venmo-ing each other the differences.

While I understand we were a large group, the entire restaurant was barely full so it made no sense to me why they wouldn't have prepared better for our large party. For the price that you pay when you come here, you aren't just paying for the food, you're paying for the atmosphere/service, and the service lacked...

Writing this as a heads up to folks planning on attending after the 5 June restriction-free opening. We attended our first post-covid sit down dinner in over a year and Burtons Nashua was not very busy compared to a number of past visits but our dining experience was a poor at best compared to our previous visits. I suspect things will not get better when they go to 100% capacity

Our chicken wing appetizer was not fully cooked to the point where my wife wouldn't eat it and they actually took it off the bill. We asked for our standard dinner salad split 50/50. When it came out the delivery person gave us one bowl so we had to ask for extra plates and she gave us these tiny bread plates. 10 minutes later the manager came by and asked if we wanted the other half of our salad--he said they had split it in the kitchen but the delivery person only delivered 1/2 of it.

After the plates were cleared we waited and waited and waited for the entrée. At about 40 minutes we grabbed the waitress and asked about the status and she admitted that the kitchen was having trouble keeping up. 10 minutes later when she delivered the 2nd round of drinks we asked again. The steak came-out immediately and they brought my wife's lobster entrée a few minutes later but she soon discovered there was no lobster in the lobster pasta. They took it back and the manager delivered it and said "he didn't know how that happened but they put the lobster in it and "re-tossed it." There was lobster in the dish but it was stone cold. Not great eating.

During all this the waitress was hard to track down even though I only saw her at a few surrounding tables. The kitchen was clearly having major issues--Burtons has never been fast but these days they clearly need more help.

Seems like with a lot of post-covid services it may be best to wait until things settle down before dining in. For us this may be our last visit since service seems to be on the decline even before covid--too many other good options available at this high-end...

We had a reservation for 5:00 PM and arrived a bit early. The hostess seated us in a nice quiet corner and gave us menus. Our server, Sarah arrived at our table 30 seconds after we sat, introduced herself and asked if we wanted a drink. I replied, would you please give us a few minutes, we just sat down and would like to look at the menu. We felt a little rushed in the beginning, but Sarah realized she needed to slow down and be patient. Then we noticed the print on the menu stating they wanted you to be done and out the door within 90 minutes. When I asked another server walking by about the print on the menu, she smiled and said "don't worry, enjoy yourself, nobody will rush you or tell you to leave". Sarah returned with water, took a drink order and explained the specials for the day. We never felt rushed after the initial time when we asked Sarah to give us a few minutes. The service she gave us was much more than expected. You could see the big smile showing even though she was wearing a mask. The restaurant appeared to be very clean and well kept. Our only complaint is the menu is over priced. The food was good and the portions were just ok, but each item on the menu is over priced. $15 dollars for firecracker shrimp, should have been no more than $10. Filet mignon was a very small portion and $30 dollars it should have been $24. $37 dollars for a ribeye steak, should have been no more than $27 or $28. Braised short rib $28 dollars should have been no more than $22 or $23. In our opinion, Burton's is somewhere between T Bone's and The Cheesecake factory. There are other restaurants in the area with great service, comparable quality and atmosphere at a more reasonable price. I expect to pay a fair price, but these prices are what you would expect to pay at an upper scale restaurant not a chain restaurant.

I would return because the service Sarah gave us was great, but I would consider another restaurant first because I don't feel you get what...